Lamborghini CEO's Plan to Dominate the Electric Future: Super Hybrids and a GT Car
Boss Stephan Winkelmann lays out his plan of attack for what he considers a completely new beginning for the supercar brand.
"This is going to be the biggest challenge since the beginning of the company." Lamborghini boss Stephan Winkelmann knows a thing or two about challenges. He was at Lambo in 2009 when the global financial crisis hit and sales of expensive supercars tanked. A few years later he had to convince the aficionados a Lamborghini SUV built using Porsche and Audi parts would be a good thing, and it wouldn't corrupt a brand famous for building some of the fastest, most extreme cars ever made. Now he lays out his plan of attack for future-proofing the iconic brand.
Existential Threat
So what now could be more of an existential threat to Lamborghini than either of those ructions? Winkelmann doesn't hesitate. "Electrification," he says, "and the acceptance of electrification. I strongly believe that what we have done in the past was evolutionary. Now it's really a cut and a new beginning."
Ironically, Lamborghini is in great shape, perhaps in the best shape it's ever been. Sales are rapidly rebounding to record levels after the COVID-induced slump of the past two years. Thanks to years of investment by Volkswagen Group, the factory at Sant'Agata Bolognese is a state-of-the-art facility making cars that are better engineered, more reliable, and built to higher quality levels than any other Lamborghinis in the marque's history.
There's money to spend on new products. Lamborghini, which went bankrupt in the late '70s and struggled through the '80s and '90s, is positioned better than ever to determine its own destiny. The problem is, determining Lamborghini's destiny isn't as straightforward as it used to be. Can a Lamborghini really be a Lamborghini without the spine-tingling, gut-punching mood music of a screaming V-12, a roaring V-10, or a thundering twin-turbo V-8?
Hybrid Lambos
Is a Lamborghini powered by batteries and electric motors even a thing? That's perhaps why Lamborghini is not rushing to embrace the idea of an electric supercar. The feedback Winkelmann is getting from customers says they're simply not interested. The Aventador and Huracán are being replaced—in 2023 and 2024, respectively—with new cars that will have hybrid powertrains—more evolutionary than revolutionary. The Urus SUV, Lamborghini's cash cow, will get a heavy face-lift in 2024, along with a hybrid powertrain.
All-Electric GT Car
The big step-change comes in 2028, when Lamborghini will launch its first-ever fully electric vehicle. It will be an addition to the range, sitting alongside the Aventador and Huracán replacements and the revised Urus. And it won't be a supercar. "It will be a 2+2 GT car, like the 350 GT Ferruccio Lamborghini started within 1963," Winkelmann says. "Less performance-only, more daily drivable."
Winkelmann says many existing Lamborghini customers will readily accept the idea of an electric Lamborghini GT. "Most of them already have an electric car," he says. He believes a fast, comfortable, dramatically styled, electric-powered daily driver is the logical starting point for Lamborghini's transition to full electrification in the mid-2030s, when the Aventador and Huracán replacements are themselves replaced by electric models.
Keeping the Spirit
Electric Lamborghinis will still be very fast in a straight line, but as even quotidian EVs can easily deliver ferocious acceleration, Winkelmann says engineers will focus on chasing the ultimate lateral acceleration numbers. They'll aim to make electric Lamborghinis go through corners faster than any other electric car. Lamborghini has experience making big, heavy machines feel remarkably talented in the twisty bits. "This is one of the things which has worked out very well with the Urus," he says. "Nobody believed the Urus would have been so easy and so Lambo-like in the corners."
Winkelmann says he's confident Lamborghini can make electric vehicles that look like Lamborghinis and perform like Lamborghinis. But they won't, he acknowledges, sound like Lamborghinis. At least not like the Lamborghinis we've all come to know and love. Will it matter? He isn't sure. "That is going to be digested by the new generations coming up," he says, noting the Lambo buyers of tomorrow are today barely in their 20s. Unlike traditional Lamborghini customers, they're going to grow up with high-performance electric vehicles. For them, a Lamborghini supercar without a bombastic internal combustion engine probably won't seem at all shocking.
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I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t fascinated by cars. My father was a mechanic, and some of my earliest memories are of handing him wrenches as he worked to turn a succession of down-at-heel secondhand cars into reliable family transportation. Later, when I was about 12, I’d be allowed to back the Valiant station wagon out onto the street and drive it around to the front of the house to wash it. We had the cleanest Valiant in the world.
I got my driver’s license exactly three months after my 16th birthday in a Series II Land Rover, ex-Australian Army with no synchro on first or second and about a million miles on the clock. “Pass your test in that,” said Dad, “and you’ll be able to drive anything.” He was right. Nearly four decades later I’ve driven everything from a Bugatti Veyron to a Volvo 18-wheeler, on roads and tracks all over the world. Very few people get the opportunity to parlay their passion into a career. I’m one of those fortunate few.
I started editing my local car club magazine, partly because no-one else would do it, and partly because I’d sold my rally car to get the deposit for my first house, and wanted to stay involved in the sport. Then one day someone handed me a free local sports paper and said they might want car stuff in it. I rang the editor and to my surprise she said yes. There was no pay, but I did get press passes, which meant I got into the races for free. And meet real automotive journalists in the pressroom. And watch and learn.
It’s been a helluva ride ever since. I’ve written about everything from Formula 1 to Sprint Car racing; from new cars and trucks to wild street machines and multi-million dollar classics; from global industry trends to secondhand car dealers. I’ve done automotive TV shows and radio shows, and helped create automotive websites, iMags and mobile apps. I’ve been the editor-in-chief of leading automotive media brands in Australia, Great Britain, and the United States. And I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. The longer I’m in this business the more astonished I am these fiendishly complicated devices we call automobiles get made at all, and how accomplished they have become at doing what they’re designed to do. I believe all new cars should be great, and I’m disappointed when they’re not. Over the years I’ve come to realize cars are the result of a complex interaction of people, politics and process, which is why they’re all different. And why they continue to fascinate me.Read More
